CARACAS: Gripping the wheel and grinning at passengers, acting President Nicolas Maduro drives a bus to campaign rallies before an election he hopes will let him steer Venezuela to six more years of hardline socialism.
From banners all around him, the image of the man Maduro calls his "father," the late Hugo Chavez, beams beatifically and salutes.
"Chavez sets the route, Maduro takes the wheel!" is the catchy slogan of the government's campaign ahead of the presidential election next Sunday to choose Chavez's successor.
Playing up his working-class roots as a bus driver and union leader, Maduro promises to push forward Chavez's "21st century socialism" if he wins.
Opinion polls give him a double-digit lead over centrist opposition candidate Henrique Capriles.
At each campaign rally, the burly, mustachioed 50-year-old plays video of his late boss instructing his millions of supporters to vote for Maduro if the worst happened.
Chavez died of cancer on March 5. Helped by a slick public relations campaign run by Brazilian strategists, the maverick former soldier easily won re-election in October despite being largely out of the public eye for weeks at a time during sessions of chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
After his death, state media went into overdrive, pushing their already adoring coverage of Chavez to near-religious levels. That formidable machinery is now swinging behind Maduro.
In the most polished of his new campaign videos, to a backdrop of swirling strings, Venezuelans write messages such as "For the love of my culture" and "For the love of my children" on balloons, and then release them into the sky. Finally, Chavez's face appears in the clouds, and he winks.
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